Swiss 18K gold minute repeating centre seconds lever Circa 1883

Gold repeating full hunter by Louis Audemars
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A heavy, high-quality Swiss 18 carat gold hunting cased minute repeating pocket watch with stoppable jumping centre seconds, circa 1883. Delivered to London on May 5th, 1883, for the sum of 63 pounds sterling. Bridge movement, two barrels, two hammers, two gongs, gold screw compensation balance. White enamel dial with Roman hours and Arabic five-minute numerals. Plain case. Cuvette signed and numbered, case numbered. Comes with a certificate.
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Diameter: 56 mm
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Weight: 163 g
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Signed: Ls Audemars Brassus & Genève
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Louis Audemars & Cie was founded in 1811 by Louis-Benjamin Audemars in the hamlet of Le Crêt Meylan near Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland. Audemars married his first wife, Julie LeCoultre, laying the foundation for the close friendship between the two companies. He had 15 children, three of them died, four daughters and eight sons remained. Louis-Benjamin and his sons specialized in producing ébauches, they made high-quality watch movements and precision complications such as repeater and chronograph mechanisms. Both design and production were carried out in-house. Their products were mostly entirely hand-made and are considered among the finest the world has ever seen. The craftsmanship was second to none at the time and even Breguet recognized this exceptional quality by listing the Audemars movement number next to his own in the cases, there was no greater compliment than that. At the time watchmakers in the region made unbranded movements which they sold to users in Geneva and actually all over Europe. There the movements would be fitted with dials and cases and sold under the brand or name of the purchaser, therefore a timepiece of the period made in France, Germany, Russia or England might actually contain, and very often did, a movement from the Vallée de Joux. Louis-Benjamin’s ambition was to make complete cased watches signed with his own name. He never lived to achieve his goal because he died in 1833 at the age of 51. However, his sons did. They decided to train with different watchmakers and learn all the different aspects of the craft. Around 1850 they returned home and began using their combined knowledge to create their own brand. At the time manual work still played a decisive role in the production. However, development did not favour them. Around 1840 Vacheron & Constantin were the first to equip their factory with production machinery, closely followed by LeCoultre and other companies. The new machines worked as well as the craftsmen but three times as fast, which of course reduced the purchasing price of the watches considerably. To counter this development, the Audemars’ decided to create watches which could not be made by machines, this is where they began making complicated watches and no other company but Audemars was able to reach such perfect coordination of design, precision and production. Theirs was the very first enterprise in the region of the Vallée de Joux to make complete watches from start to finish and signed with their own name. Unfortunately, they were much better watchmakers than businessmen and the company was bankrupt and liquidated in 1885.